It is widely believed that the presence of a large informal sector increases the efficiency costs of social programs in developing countries. We develop a simple theoretical model of optimal unemployment insurance (UI) that specifies the efficiency-insurance tradeoff in the presence of informal...

Few developing countries have adopted an Unemployment Insurance (UI) program but the list of countries considering its implementation is growing. Focusing on the Brazilian UI program and using administrative data covering the universe of formal employment, we provide empirical evidence...

Few developing countries have adopted an Unemployment Insurance (UI) program but the list of countries considering its implementation is growing. Focusing on the Brazilian UI program and using administrative data covering the universe of formal employment, we provide empirical evidence...

It is widely believed that the presence of a large informal sector increases the ef?ciency costs of social programs in developing countries. We develop a simple theoretical model of optimal unemployment insurance (UI) that speci?es the ef?ciency–insurance tradeoff in the presence of informal...

Few developing countries have adopted an Unemployment Insurance (UI) program but the list of countries considering its implementation is growing. Focusing on the Brazilian UI program and using administrative data covering the universe of formal employment, we provide empirical evidence...

It is widely believed that the presence of a large informal sector increases the ef?ciency costs of social programs in developing countries. We develop a simple theoretical model of optimal unemployment insurance (UI) that speci?es the ef?ciency–insurance tradeoff in the presence of informal...

It is widely believed that the presence of a large informal sector increases the efficiency cost of social programs – transfer and social insurance programs – in developing countries. We evaluate such claims for policies that have been heavily studied in countries with low informality –...